Trimester 2 grades will be distributed on Wednesday, the 20th of March. Please look for the portfolio! And then bring that portfolio to your conference.
Parent Conferences: Please click the link below to sign up for a conference on March 29th ! Notice the the ⅚ list is separated from the ⅞ list!
Update on the Voyager Play, Dr. Jordan and His Toybox of Success
LET THE SHOW BEGIN!
Each week we will post information about the play including volunteers we may need for the upcoming week and other essential information like materials, prop help, whatever! On March 29, teachers will be in the building all day for conferences. We will put together a schedule of timeslots stating projects that could be done for the play on that day.
Special Note: Math and Science instruction will continue throughout the play!
Writer/Director: Thanks to Maddie Collins and Kaitlyn Kaplan for the hard work you have done writing the play! And all the hours you have put in with Ms. Wesnak is commendable. You should be proud!
Stage Managers
- Marlee Gunn
- Katie Usher
Cast List
- Ari - Betsy* (girl at the dance)
- T - Cameraman*
- Kenny - Brad (football Player)*
- Blaine S - Teddy the Bear*
- Morgan - Cassy* (kid at dance)
- Jessica - Ms. Bernie* (woman at the party)
- Geneva - Tiffany* (cheerleader)
- Nick D - Little Jordyn*
- Izzy - Brittany Head Cheerleader*
- Halina - Doll 3*
- Livie - Ashley* (cheerleader)
- Hanna - Doll 1*
- Paige - Sadie*
- Kyle - Greg* (college roommate)
- Ethan - Puppet*
- Mariah - Louise, Scarlett* (med student, woman at baby shower)
- Sophia - Doll 2*
- Olivia Yandow - Ms. Blackstone* (woman at baby shower)
- Pam - Courtney* (cheerleader)
- Julia - Crystal, Ms. Diston* (girl at dance, woman at baby shower)
- Lydia- Little Brooklyn*
- Nathalie - Mrs. Diller*
- Lindsey - Payton*
- Mishka - Minnie*
- Abby - Brooklyn*
- Nicole E - Amanda* (girl at dance)
- Katie Schroeder - Barbie/Malika* (toy, med student)
- Cale - Johnny*
- Jaden - Max* (boy at dance)
- Davis - Piggy the Bank*
- Chris O’Brien - Jordyn*
- Nate - Mr. Layn*
- Josh F. - Mr. Miles*
- Cole - Ken*
- Laura - Autumn*
- Cat - Mrs. Miles*
- Graham - Jason* (med student)
- Corey - Cody* (med student)
- Brayden- Chad* (football player)
- Will S- Jack in the Box*
- Brennan - Neil* (boy at dance)
- Raf - Mr. Diller*
- Laurynn - Rebecca* (girl at dance)
- Allie - Stephanie* (cheerleader)
- Kaitlyn Z. - April*
- Kylie P. - Little Payton*
- Noah - Mike* (football player)
- Cameron - Ms. Chathom* (woman at the party)
- Erin - Fiona* (woman at the party)
- Josh Bowen - Coach Foster*
- Nick P. - Derrick* (football player)
- Kaylee - Melissa* (girl at the dance)
- Delaney R. - Raggedy Ann*
- SJ - Declan*
- Richard - Rocky*
- Caleb- Trent (football player)
- Jack - Toy in the toybox
Lights and Sound
- Doug Schmidt
- Alex Ulanov
- Luca Mele
- Sylar Gillian
- Lucien Theriault
- Grayson Moore
- Cullen Swett
- Mark Lang
- Jake Bouffard
- Kiley McClure
- Hillari Dudley
- Logan Griswold
- James Schmidt
Stage Crew
- Parker Soares
- Keenan LaClair
- McKenna Griswold
- Natalie Durieux
- Kris Kinne
- Callie O’Connell
- Ben Ritchie
- Peter Leombruno
- Grace Hemmelgarn
- Koko Vercessi-Clarke
- Julian Mele
- Will Moody
- Grace Colbeth
- Spinner Michalak
- Casey Carpenter
Costumes and Set Design
- Olivia Giroux
- Luisa Hutt
- Sam Clear
- Brianna Kolibas
Media/Documentation/Playbill Design
- Makayla Driscoll
- Katie Scheer
- Justin Schaaf - video documentation
- Lani Baker
Ms. Q’s Corner
Math 7
We completed our Stretching and Shrinking Unit with an exciting game of jeopardy. It was an action-filled competition, and students had fun reviewing geometric proportion problems. The unit assessment on Tuesday closed out the trimester. Absolute value and the square root functions were introduced and we practiced using our graphing calculators to navigate the exponent key and our square root buttons. During our theater unit students will be participating in our “Blow it Up and Shrink it Down” project. The 7th graders will select a drawing or cartoon to create copies that are larger, smaller and skewed from the original. Students will need to prove mathematically that the copy is similar or dissimilar to the original.
Math 8
What killed the mammoths? There has been a lot of controversy over what killed the mammoth population over 13,000 years ago. Was it the aftermath of an asteroid? Was it global climate change? Was it an infectious disease, or perhaps over hunting by man? Using dice we created a simulation of the birth and death rate of mammoths over 20 years. This simulation allowed us to see the decay rate of a species. We graphed our results and came up with a “best fit” curve for the exponential decay that occurred. We finished out our week with the Growing, Growing, Growing assessment which is the last unit test for this term. The 8th graders will be participating in the SBAC computerized assessment on Friday and Monday.
Science 7th/8th
Students completed their rubber band car lab report on Monday. We had two groups that were able to engineer their car to land directly on the “line” ten feet from the start. The winning teams were:GoldTeam 2:Kaitlyn, Logan, Nate and Natalie, Gold Team 10: Kyle and Raf and Blue Team: Grace and Lucien. Go Rubber Band Car Champions! We left the motion of cars to explore the motion of objects as they fall to the earth. What is gravity? How would we have evolved if we had a low gravity environment? We pondered this big question during Private Think Time and then did a few experiments as a class. During our play unit, students will be working on their WCS Science Fair projects. Students should be completing their testing and data collection. The first draft of the lab report is due.
Mr. Merrill’s Wrap Up
⅚ Language Arts
Students practiced basic dialogue writing format and worked on creating an exciting fictional narrative using dialogue and other practiced techniques. We played peer editing musical chairs, creating an opportunity for students to edit 3 fictional narratives, and to take away a comment sheet with suggestions on plot plan, technique, and GUM. Students put in a great effort on this unit. We had a lot of fun reading and sharing stories today in class.
⅚ Social Studies
This week we wrapped up our two week Mission US unit. We started the week by preparing for parts 4 and 5 by asking the questions: What are rights? What are Freedoms? We then looked at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and considered what rights the patriots were being denied at that time. We also considered what rights were being denied to other people in the colonies at that time period.
After students finished playing the game, we then took a look at the Declaration of Independence and summarized the introduction and imagined how each of the characters in Mission US would have reacted to the document. We then made a timeline of important events that were part of or mentioned in the game. We considered the consequences for each of these events discussed how these events shaped the fight for freedom.
Finally, students wrote a letter to a future apprentice, describing the events in Boston and life as an apprentice. The students really enjoyed the Mission and made many excellent connections, including ideas for their fictional narratives.
News from Ms. O
Math 5
Students have been working on building understanding of division by using multiplication menus. A multiplication menu consists of the divisor (the number of equal groups by determined) multiplied by 1, 2, 5, 10, and 20. The development of the menu has been good practice in basic fluency, but also serves as a way to repeatedly subtract from the whole. Ask you child to show you an example. Many students, who have already internalized the traditional algorithm, have been frustrated with having to learn a more conceptual model. When we understand algorithms in terms of conceptual underpinnings we become more able to sensemake the structure and skill of an algorithmic solution. I hope that it hasn’t frustrated some students. I have been pleased with the overall effort! We will have a checkpoint quiz on Tuesday.
Math 6
Happy Pi Day! Students have been working on developing understanding of the attributes and measurements associated with CIRCLES! What is Pi? Allowing students to discover this is always a thrill for me, given my own lack of knowing until age 30, when taking math classes as a teacher! What an Aha moment for me! We celebrated our Pi Day with a contest to see who could memorize the most digits of Pi! You might be surprised to know that your children, who may not remember his/her piano book for piano lessons, can in fact go deep into the non-repeating, non-terminating nature of Pi. Congratulations to our winners!
- Brayden Bartlett - 58 digits of Pi (3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209)
- Geneva Cote - 35 digits of Pi (3.141592653589793238462643383279502884)
- Graham Streeter - 28 digits of Pi (3.141592653589793238462643383)
- Brianna Kolibas - 27 digits of Pi (3.14159265358979323846264338)
We watched a great domino set up to celebrate Pi Day (check it out http://www.piday.org/ ) and ate PIE! Thanks to all families for donating pies! We loved them.
Science ⅚
We began a new unit this week called Earth and Beyond. Students were assigned a topic for a research report on Space Exploration and Technology. Students will be working with both Mr. Merrill and Ms. O on the research, writing, and podcast components of the project. Once all audio broadcasts have been recorded, we will release them on the VOICE over a series of weeks! Look forward to hearing all about your child’s work learning about how space exploration and technology have provided us with a wealth of information about our solar system.
We have also begun exploring gravity by dropping balls and observing what happens when two objects fall to Earth. We are hoping this will help us generalize gravity’s effects on all objects in our solar system.
The Week in Ms. Wesnak’s Room
7/8 Language Arts:
This week students worked on bringing their memoirs back to life! We have been using Photo Story to do this, along with the help of Ms. Birdsall. Students were able to find and use beautiful photos to enhance their stories. The classes worked with editing techniques, transitions, and music. Most students were able to finish recording the reading of their memoirs and build their final Photo Story movie! If they were not able to finish recording, all students were able to at least get started. We will be having an in-class viewing party the Monday after our play unit (April 8th). On a date still to be determined, we will be inviting families to our classroom to view all and any movies.
7/8 Social Studies
This week our schedule was a little out of the norm! So many of the students on our house are involved in band and chorus, and put all of their hard work, time, and effort into one beautiful Spring Concert that we were all able to attend. With the busy rehearsal times and scheduling, some of our afternoon classes had to be a bit more “flexible”. This week we wrapped up studies on the Civil Rights Movement and were able to wrap up our mini-unit on the 60’s by taking a look at the Space Race. We watched a couple great videos, had a lively brainstorm and discussion, and finished by reading a short play about the 1st moon landing. Just a reminder, as of next week normal Social Studies and Language Arts classes will be taken up by the Play Unit, while Math and Science classes will still take place!
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